Lord Ashcroft and the politics of envy

Intriguing figure: Lord Ashcroft is a major donor to the Conservative party

What a pity. After that highly effective 'no notes' speech to the Tory spring conference at the weekend, David Cameron would have been justified in believing that he was getting back on the front foot.

Instead, the Tories have been bogged down answering questions about Michael Ashcroft, their deputy chairman and major donor.

An intriguing figure is Lord Ashcroft. A brilliant businessman and, to be fair, significant philanthropist, he has an uncanny ability to attract controversy.

To his admirers, he is the man who saved a bankrupt Conservative Party and whose tireless work focusing his party's energy on the marginals could be the key to a Conservative victory.

To his detractors (and this is a man who rarely loses a battle with those who malign him) he exerts too much control over the Tory party.

The irony is that much of this mess is the Tories' own fault. When Lord Ashcroft became a peer he gave assurances to William Hague, who was then the party leader, which most people interpreted as meaning that he was going to give up his 'non-dom' tax status.

He didn't do so, and he didn't tell Mr Hague he hadn't. It wasn't until several months ago that Mr Hague found out and Mr Cameron didn't discover that Lord Ashcroft was a non-dom until last month.

This lack of curiosity about an issue which they have been asked about many times is unimpressive. It was a mistake for Mr Hague to have allowed Lord Ashcroft to be ambiguous about his tax position and it was a mistake for Mr Cameron not to have cleared up the whole matter when he became leader.

It was also arguably an error to have accepted donations from one of Lord Ashcroft's firms and laid themselves open to the charge that they hadn't cooperated with the Electoral Commission.

All that said, however, the cynically motivated fuss which Labour - the party that polluted British political life with the cash for honours scandal - has been making over this affair is hypocritical.

Labour has received far more money from its non-dom donors than the Tories from Lord Ashcroft. It even made one of them - Lord Paul - a Privy Counsellor.

And as for Lord Mandelson getting on his high horse about wealthy power brokers, that is indeed rich coming from a man who loves hobnobbing with billionaires of unappetising reputation.

Truly, this is going to be a filthy election, with Labour, the party that once so assiduously courted the rich, playing the politics of envy card.

Hopefully, the facts about Lord Ashcroft - which should have been aired months ago - are now out in the open.

Yesterday, the Bank of England revealed just how little confidence it has in the economic recovery by freezing interest rates. That is the issue that should be consuming British politics.

University challenge

Lean times are coming to universities. How do they react? Not by tapping new funding or tackling their drop-out rate.

No, instead they want the Government to deny subsidised loans to students whose middle-class parents receive no benefits and pay ever higher taxes.

You would think they would be satisfied with pushing ministers to allow them to charge £7,000 a year to better-off students, and with an admissions system that discriminates against those from good postcodes or private schools.

But no, because they've paid out much of the extra funding they've received in higher salaries for staff, their reaction is to hammer Middle England.

Not only is this unfair, but profoundly misguided. Only by taking the best students whatever their background can our universities hope to keep up with the growing challenge from China and India.